


Every Fairytale Needs a Good Old-Fashioned Villain

by magnetgirl



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Bisexual Female Character, F/F, Female Anti-Hero, Misses Clause Challenge, Pre-Canon, Recreational Drug Use, White Privilege
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-01 18:21:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2783030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnetgirl/pseuds/magnetgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her name was Patsy Kane which is the kind of name only the Gotham elite have just like Fish Mooney is the kind of name only the Gotham underground have. They had nothing else in common.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Fairytale Needs a Good Old-Fashioned Villain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [feverbeats](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feverbeats/gifts).



> I used the prompt "story about Fish Mooney as a nightclub singer in the past who murders the rich dudes of the city" as my jumping off point. This isn't that story exactly but it was the inspiration. I love Fish Mooney, I think she has huge potential and I used this opportunity to get under her skin. I also think Martha Wayne is criminally under used in Bat-lore. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed putting it together.

“You’re a monster!”

Fish grinned. She loved it when they got all self-righteous. She’d been at this for ten years and it sometimes still surprised her how delusional a rich man can be.

“Is that all?” She’d asked for last words, as she always did. She may be a monster, and a murderer, but she was polite about it. Sometimes they broke down, confessing their sins. Often, like now, they railed at the injustice of it all. As if any of them knew what injustice feels like. Usually they begged for their lives. Pathetic.

“I’m not gonna give you the satisfaction,” he answered. Fish smiled. Defiance could be as fun as delusion.

“There are other ways to satisfy,” she suggested coyly. His face exploded with a mixture of disgust and desire but there was a knock on her door before either of them could speak again.

“Ten minutes, Ms. Mooney.” 

She straightened. “Sorry,” she purred to her prey, tied to the bed with silk scarves. Natalie was so gifted with knots, she was certain they’d have to cut him down when it was done. “I don’t have any more time.” He started to open his mouth in reply but her shot to the head interrupted. She dropped the gun on to the bed and picked up the little silver bell on the table. Two rings later Natalie and Butch were taking care of the body while she freshened her make-up for the ten-o'clock performance.

“This one.”

Fish tapped the paper with a fingernail. Her eyes were drawn to the headline GOTHAM’S GUARDIAN ANGEL -- nothing pleased her more than toppling the city’s heroes -- but the picture had its own allure. A man, tall but unassuming, standing in front of the hospital. She skimmed the article, he was donating a wing.

“Dr. Thomas Wayne,” Butch explained as she turned to find the second half of the article. “Big shot do gooder. He and his--”

“Wife,” Fish interrupted, spreading the paper across the table so she could get a better look at the couple. Dr. Wayne and his beautiful blonde wife, the heroes of Gotham. How far her little lost princess had come. “Start a file."

Butch made a face. “This guy's cleaner than--” Fish raised an eyebrow. “Yes, ma'am.”

She was dressed in a school uniform. Pleated skirt, knee socks, mary-janes, the whole cliche. Her blouse was untucked and her hair was loose, dirty blonde tendrils falling over her eyes. Whenever Fish thought about it, about her, she pictured her that way. Hair in her eyes and sweater falling off her shoulder because she buttoned it too quickly and wrong. A perfect metaphor for the girl wearing it.

She was dressed in a school uniform. Fish knew the school. Private. Meaning pretentious.  Elite. Meaning expensive. Exclusive. Meaning racist.

There were three of them, in their uniforms, carrying satchels that cost as much as someone's annual salary in this part of town. That's why they stood out. People in Fish's neighborhood didn't go to private academies. If they went to school at all. Fish stopped going at the end of sixth grade, when she realized she already knew more than every teacher in the place.

There were three of them but Fish only remembers her.

"What's this?" Fish stopped ten feet from the street corner where the three elite students stood in an awkward triangle. She struck a pose, hip forward, shoulders back, hands stuffed into the pockets of her coat. Its red fur collar played dramatic against the grey city scape. It was a good pose and Fish knew it.  

"Look here girls," Fish continued, addressing the two behind, flanking her as they were trained. "Looks like we got a lost princess."  

The schoolgirl crossed her arms in an attempt to look tough, or at least calm. “I'm not lost.”

“Oh?” Fish flicked her eyes side to side, a slow smile creeping across her lips. “Ohhh. Hmmmm.” Fish could make a syllable sound like a sentence. “You meant to be here.” She took a step towards the trio, her people following in sync. As they were trained.

“Yes.”

“Here.” Another step. “Right here.” And again. The gap was closing. It made the sidekicks nervous, but not the princess. “This very corner.”

The girl hesitated. Not long, but just long enough.

"Mmm." Fish nodded with a knowing smile. "I thought so." She felt a laugh form in the back of her throat, threatening to bubble over, but she swallowed it. This wasn't a laughing matter. Yet.

"I came for--

Fish raised a hand and turned her head. A mask of boredom flooded her features. “We don't sell to your type.”

“My type?” the girl repeated, squeaking with indignation, the way these fussy schoolmice always did.

“Gotham elite. I don't want trouble with the mob or the cops for selling to a bored little lost princess. Go ask your driver to get you drugs. That's his real job, right?" Fish's companions snickered at the appropriate moment, though one held it a little too long. Fish raised an eyebrow and Angel's giggle cut off immediately.

One of the the others tugged on the speaker’s sweater and urged her to just leave. But the girl shook her off. "I'm not here to buy drugs."

Fish cocked her head. Schoolgirl was young but maybe old enough to be looking for another way to score. Read _Romeo and Juliet_ and mistook it for romance instead of a training manual. How to manipulate silly young rich people into destroying themselves. “You want me to introduce you to a boy from the wrong side of town?”

“What?” She frowned. “No.”

“You need fast money? I guess there is an audience for what you’re selling but it’s not as much fun as you think.”

The girl shook her head in confusion. “I’m not selling…” Her voice trailed off as she worked out what Fish was talking about. “I’m not -- that’s --” She broke off, afraid to finish the sentence when anything she said would insult this girl she was trying to impress.

Fish pursed her lips. This was getting boring. "Why are you here?"

The princess took a breath. “I'm writing an article for the school paper.”

The girls flanking Fish snorted with laughter but Fish narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

The would be reporter ignored the laughter, and the eyerolls of the two girls with her, and answered honestly and earnestly. “Kids in my school don’t know what it’s like for people like you.”

“People like me?” The others stopped laughing immediately. They knew that tone. “So, what….” Fish stood up straight and opened her arms wide, suddenly she seemed to take up as much space as all of them combined. “You came to see the freaks for yourself?” The princess shook her head furiously. Her friends started to back away. “I don't live in a zoo. This isn't a circus. We're not putting on a show.”

The schoolgirl blinked, forcing tears away. “I don't want a show, I want the truth.”

Fish closed the gap between them with one swift step. “I've seen your truth.” She lay both hands on the other girl’s chest and pushed. The girl stumbled into the two behind her and they all fell, like dolls. Fish kissed the air and turned to walk away. Her companions fell in step beside her and they’d gone a block before she felt a hand on her elbow. Persistent little princess.

“That's why --” Fish’s two friends stepped in to surround the schoolgirl. She was alone now, Fish could see the others running off behind them.  “I want to show them all that's wrong and if we just helped--”

Fish knocked the girl’s hand away. “I don't want your help.”

“No, I mean, it's not fair--”

Fish threw her head back and laughed. The sound was clipped, harsh, a bark calculated to be cruel. It still wasn’t a laughing matter. "Hear that girls. It's _not fair_." They laughed on cue but it was more menacing than merry. The princess looked like she wanted to cry.

“Please... I'm sorry. I don't want to insult you--”

“You can't,” Fish assured her and started to turn away again.

“Okay. But--”

“Go home, princess.” Fish waved her hand. A clear dismissal but the girl ran after, around, and planted herself in Fish’s path.

“Please! I just want to talk to you,” she begged.

“You talked. I talked. I'm bored." She scrunched her nose. "And hungry." She turned to her lackey. "You hungry?"

Their persistent guest jumped at the chance. "I'll buy you dinner.”

Fish pursed her lips in annoyance. “I _said_ I don't need your charity.”

“It's not charity. It's an interview.”

Fish rolled her eyes. “What, you gonna follow me around and learn something?" Fish knew enough to know the other side of Gotham never learned nothing. It was better that way, really, easier to play them. "How long you think that'll take? Huh?" Stupid little rich girls made it easy to win. "You gonna move in? Huh? Huh?" Fish was too worked up to realize she'd dropped out of the speech pattern she cultivated so no one would mistake her for something common. She refused to be a street rat. But sometimes old habits crept in. "I don't got space for a tenant, princess."

"My name is--"

Fish threw up her hands in disgust. "You think I care what your name is?"

The schoolgirl bit her lip. "What's your name?"

"Fish."

"Fish?" She wasn't sure she'd heard right.

"Yes." Fish brushed a hand across her chest, fluffing the fur collar again. She wasn't worried. The princess's expose would never be published.

"Like a... fish...fish?"

Fish's expression said she was surprised to find the girl was even dumber than she looked. "Yes," she said again, slowly, somehow making one word sound like a litany of insults. "And those my girls, Angel and Goldie. Get it?"

She glanced at Angel and Goldie, taking mental notes. "Do you choose your own code names?"

"I chose _their_ code names," Fish corrected. "Because they're my crew."

"How many people are in your crew?" asked the eager reporter. "Are they all girls?"

"Why, you wanna join?"

The girl blinked. "No, I... I don't know." Angel and Goldie sniggered dismissively but Fish met her eyes and raised an eyebrow. _I dare you_. "Would I get a fish name?"

Angel and Goldie started laughing in earnest. Fish's lip curled. "Nah, I like princess."

"I don't," was the quick answer, spoken with a quiet, sullen, defiance that lit up her face.

A giggle escaped Fish's lips before she could stop it. It was light and musical and unaffected. She sounded, in the moment, like the fifteen year old girl she was. Or might have been, if her whole life was different. It was so uncharacteristic Angel and Goldie stopped laughing and stared, scared. Fish ignored them. "Okay, princess," She touched a finger to the other girl's lip. "You can buy me dinner."

Her name was Patsy Kane which is the kind of name only the Gotham elite have just like Fish Mooney is the kind of name only the Gotham underground have. They had nothing else in common.

They each became the other’s project. Patsy imagined getting Fish a scholarship to the academy, then college, followed by law school. They’d go together, then return to Gotham and clean up the streets. They could go into politics, pass laws that make sense, get kids off the streets, make it fair for everyone. Fish could be president if she wanted, Patsy knew, she just needed someone to believe in her. She just needed a little help.

Fish had simpler ambitions for Patsy. She taught her how to shoplift and skip paying for public transport. They seduced a businessman and then clocked him with a beer bottle when he got naked. They snuck into the abandoned nightclub nearby where Fish grew up and belted out show tunes. Fish told Patsy how she was going to buy the place. Patsy didn’t get it. Patsy didn’t get a lot.

"What'll it do?"

Fish drew a finger slowly through her friend's hair. Her long, golden, hair, all soft curls like the fairytale demanded. Fish's fingers tightened at the thought.

"Make you feel good." Fish shifted so she could see Patsy's face, her expression equal parts anticipation and anxiety.

"How?"

Fish shifted again. The movement rippled across the whole bed, jostling the other girl so she dropped deeper into the mountain of pillows arranged against the canopy frame. Fish leaned in to whisper, "Magic."

Patsy curled her bottom lip over her teeth. Gathering courage, Fish knew. "No, I mean.... is it safe?"

_Of course it's safe, baby_ Her Mama's words rushed back to Fish. Was it her first taste? Was she ever like Patsy? Scared but also excited but also... Fish didn't remember feeling afraid like that. Mama gave her drugs to stay quiet when she was six, three...she was probably born hooked. Why would she remember fear. Why would she care about safe.

Patsy was still biting her lip. Waiting. Fish extended a manicured finger tip to trace Patsy’s lips, finally gently pushing her lips, teeth, mouth open. She pressed the finger to Patsy’s tongue, depositing a slick strip of ‘magic’. With a grin she tipped Patsy’s chin up, closing her mouth as the drug started to dissolve. “Trust.”

Still holding Patsy’s gaze, Fish placed a second strip on her own tongue before leaning in for a kiss. Tongues, teeth, drugs, and desire mingled and mixed and as the world burned away, they were safe.

But it never lasts.

“You won an award?”

Patsy laughed. “I know! I was just as surprised.” She sounded self-conscious but also proud. “But it's all you,” she stressed. “It's _your_ story. I just wrote it down.”

Fish glanced away. It wasn’t fair to laugh in Patsy’s face even if that was the appropriate response. She’d read the article, more than once. It wasn’t her story. It was a fairytale. Fish envied the girl in the story. Almost as much as she hated her.

“Why's my name Penny?” Fish asked because she had to say something.

Patsy frowned. “You said I had to change it…”

“But why _Penny_?" Penny was a name for an orphan, a spirited young lady doing her best, a weakling. Fish shivered at the thought.

"My editor chose it. He said it was easy to remember. We want people to care after they're done reading." Fish had become very still, Patsy's eyes grew wide as she realized what she was saying. "I didn't mean--"

"No, I get it." Fish refolded the paper and set it aside as if it suddenly made her feel dirty. "People need to remember I'm poor."

"Fish--"

"No, I _said_ I get it.” Fish shook her head. Patsy was biting her lip again. “Do _you_?” She tapped the newspaper with a pointed finger. “This --” Another angry jab. Patsy flinched. “This has nothing to do with me.”

Patsy took a sharp breath and pressed her lips together. “I understand.” She didn’t, but she wanted to. She wanted, she wanted… she didn’t know what she wanted except Fish safe and happy and Gotham safe and happy and better. She wanted everything to be better and she didn’t understand why it wasn’t and why everyone didn’t want it. She didn’t understand, but she wanted to. And she wanted Fish to understand that. She needed Fish to understand that.

Patsy grabbed Fish’s hand and pulled her away from the paper and toward the sunlight, or so she’d write it if she were to publish this moment. She held her friend’s hand tightly in both her own. “I still want you to come to the banquet.”

“Banquet?” The word was an angry bark, Fish’s normally inscrutable eyes flashing against a betrayal that wouldn’t hit for weeks but started before she’d ever seen her pretentious princess.

Patsy shrugged in apology. "I won an award." Fish stared at Patsy’s hands holding her’s in a cage as pretty and pink as the girl herself. Fish was silent as her friend babbled about the dresses they’d wear and the boys they’d dance with and the people who wanted to meet ‘Penny’. Fish was silent as her friend babbled about all the possibilities, all the wonderful things that could happen to them both. Fish was silent as her friend babbled about the giant party being thrown to celebrate the lie she’d based on a hundred good intentions.

Patsy would never understand.

“Wait! Please!”

Fish ran down the stairs, pretending she couldn’t hear her over the sirens and the screaming. She’d be going faster if she was wearing her own shoes. She would be choking on the irony if she wasn’t running for her life. Everybody wants to be Cinderella until midnight hits.  

“I want in.” Three words, whispered, as they danced. Fish blinked, once. There it was. The truth that started this story. None of it mattered. Not idealism, not faith, not friendship, not love, not hope. Not even money. She was wearing more than six thousand dollars and it didn’t matter. It couldn’t hide what she was.

Powerless.

“I want in,” he whispered into her ear as they danced around the ballroom. He didn’t elaborate. Drugs, sex, guns, whatever. Whatever she was into. Whatever would make him money. Whatever would get him higher and keep her down.

“I want in,” he whispered and Fish stopped dancing.

Fish stumbled three steps from the bottom and Patsy caught up. She grabbed Fish’s arm. “Please, give me another chance. Give me a second chance.”

Fish wrenched away but didn’t run. She shouted, “I didn't give you a _first_ chance. You took it.” The crowd was surging forward. The sirens were on top of them. Fish raised her voice. “You take everything! Anything!”

“I want in,” he whispered and Fish stopped dancing and grabbed a fork and shoved it into his neck. She ran.

Tears were streaming down Patsy’s cheeks as she reached for Fish’s hand again. “No, I didn't mean--”

“ _I know_ ,” Fish roared and Patsy fell backwards, as if she’d been hit. “That's all you ever say. Stop acting like it matters.”

She was sentenced to two and a half years in the Gotham juvenile detention facility. The family wanted her tried as an adult -- assault with a deadly weapon! attempted murder! he had a scar! -- but they couldn’t prove she was older than fifteen and a half, the cut off in Gotham at the time. They’d gotten the law changed since, of course. Nothing motivates the rich like an injustice against their own. But at the time they had to settle for the maximum juvenile sentence and solitary confinement.  

She broke out after two and a half weeks.

“You want us to arrange something?” Angel held up the newspaper, Patsy smiled from the page. She’d become a minor celebrity, the plucky heroine determined to save Gotham from its own darkness, one misguided orphan at a time.

Fish shook her head. The schoolgirl crusader was just getting started. The time for revenge would come. “I want you to gather all my capital.” She stopped walking; they’d reached their destination. The building was rundown, abandoned, like most of the neighborhood and too much of the city. “It's time.”

“What about --”

Fish flicked a hand. “She's nothing. I got what I wanted from her.”

Fish finally understood her role.

 

**Epilogue**

 

“Fish.”

Fish opened her arms wide, welcoming. “Mr. Falcone, it's an honor.”

“An honor I share.”

She smiled and gestured for him to sit. Their people settled a respectful distance behind. As they were trained. Fish waved to the bar to bring two drinks.

Falcone placed his hands on the table, folded gently, in plain sight. “I've been watching you.”

“I'm flattered.” Fish nodded to the server as set their martinis in place.

“I'm impressed,” he countered. “You've risen quickly.”

Fish smiled again. Modest. Patient. Yielding the lead. It wouldn’t do to stumble this close to her next goal. Falcone returned the smile and settled back into his seat.

“What do you,” he paused, she raised her chin, “... _want_?”

“Power,” Fish answered without hesitation.

Falcone raised his hands, palms up, open, inviting. “That's something I can provide.”

Fish tilted her head. “At a cost.”

“Of course.”

Fish held his gaze. Modest. Patient. Yielding the lead. Falcone placed his hands back on the table.

“You're smart. You're clever. I could use someone like you.”

_I'm sure you could._ Fish raised the martini glass to her lips to mask the thought. "I'm listening."

He waved and one of his men dropped a file on the table between them. “You've got a good set up. I want to build on it.”

Fish set her glass down and opened the file. Blueprints. Contracts. Accounting. This was serious. Better than she’d anticipated. “Take me under your wing?” She stopped short of calling him daddy. But she intended to be his most dangerous pawn. The one who would cross the board and win a crown.

“I'm offering you a place in my organization. You want power? I'm power.”

Fish blinked, once, and took a deep breath.

“Tell me more.”


End file.
